Illusion For The Moment
by Protector of the Gray Fortress
Summary: It is the worst night of his life and the one man who could have helped was lost in a waterfall called Reichenbach.


**This story has been in my head since I read the emtpy house,**** be warned it is pretty depressing and is the closest I shall ever come to a death fic.**

"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone." - Orson Welles

* * *

In one of the upper rooms of a small flat in London, Kensington, John Watson knelt beside a bed, leaning against it, his head pillowed on his arm.

She was hard to make out from the whiteness of the sheets, for her face was pale and bereft of color save the redness that arose in her cheeks when she frequently coughed, anyone who had known her even a few months before would not have recognized her, so wasted and thin was she. Only her hair remained unchanged, spread out against the pillow in golden waves that caught and seemed to glow in the dim light of the gas-lamps.

Watson had not meant to fall asleep, but the shadows around his eyes bespoke his exhaustion, and his position was far from comfortable. His free hand was tangled in the locks of her hair, as though he had been stroking it before he had finally collapsed, exhausted beyond even his notable stamina.

He did not hear the soft creak of the door opening, did not even stir until the footsteps had halted beside him, and a hand came to rest on his shoulder.

He would have jerked upright had he the energy, as it was his eyes snapped open at once and he lifted his head with great effort to look at the owner of the hand.

"My dear Watson." Said a well-remembered voice, though now it was thick and choked with emotion.

Watson _did_ sit upright then, his haggard face clearing a fraction to show his pleasure and relief at his friend's appearance.

"Holmes." He said quietly, with hardly the energy of his old enthusiasm.

Holmes gripped his other shoulder as well and gave both a gentle squeeze before he released his friend to draw closer to the bed.

Mary's husband watched as his greatest friend studied her with unusually soft, grey eyes.

The unspoken question passed between them as many others had in the past, and Watson found himself answering as readily as if he had heard his friend voice it aloud.

"Consumption." The word broke in his throat as though it were as fragile as it had made his wife. He swallowed and blinked in an effort to regain control over the emotions howling like a gale through him.

"Will she improve?" The questioning was familiar, cold and detached, and Watson knew it was his friend's own way of keeping feeling in check.

Improve…not recover, he knew as well as the medical man on the floor that there was no recovery…not from this illness, only delay.

It took the good Doctor a great deal to put his voice to the answer, "No."

Holmes did not press, did not reject his diagnosis, only stood as still and straight as one of the stone-carved statues of a churchyard as he watched the devastating scene before him.

"Watson…" he whispered at last after a spell, "Watson I'm so sorry."

There was an utter seriousness and devastation in his voice that convinced Watson of the sincerity of the statement…the same statement that he had heard from so many other lips and had meant nothing.

This time it did, someone else was feeling his pain with him, could relate in some manner to the agony inside him and this knowledge broke him at last.

He gasped as a sob, unbidden, escaped from his throat, and as though some vital string of composure had snapped, his shoulders began to shake.

He clenched his hands on the bedclothes, still fighting for some control, or perhaps wishing he could hurt something else, pour his agony into the blankets if it would ease the gaping black emptiness inside his own chest, an endless jagged hole that ate away at him until there was nothing but the horror.

There was a quick sound of movement and then Holmes was crouching beside him with a sinewy arm around his shoulders, a comforting and usually casual gesture though it meant a great deal more now.

"Oh God." Watson gasped shakily, his voice was so soft the detective could scarcely hear him, "What have I done? Its' my fault…God, Holmes…its' my fault…" Surely no one could feel such pain and not be responsible for it.

"Its' not." Holmes said at once, his voice firm.

"I should have seen it."

"You cannot work miracles Watson. More's the pity, if any man had the judgement to do so…"

"Oh God!" his sobs increased, the pain was physical and it was unlike anything he had ever felt before.

A shaking hand took hold of his other shoulder, turning him, and after a moment of hesitation, one last struggle for composure, Watson turned to his friend; clinging to him as the thin arms embraced him awkwardly, invariably unused to such displays of affection despite a willingness and warmth that had grown over the years. The Holmes' household must have been a cold one indeed.

He let his head rest upon the tweed-clad shoulder, the somewhat comforting smells of ammonia and strong tobacco reaching his nose though it did nothing to dissipate the pain. Nothing could do that, not even the presence of his friend. It was rampaging through him with horrific devastation and he knew that nothing could stop it. Watson sobbed oh his friend's shoulder as his warm heart was torn apart and the only thing Holmes could do was act as an anchor, keeping him sane and steady as the grief ran its' course.

"Oh God." Watson gasped again, his arms tightening and his whole frame shaking. "Oh God…Holmes."

He said both names in tandem, with a similar tone of plea and desperation, as though they were the two beings he could count on for comfort and assurance.

And still Holmes could do nothing, would never be able to really meet the faith Watson had in him. So he held his friend as he sobbed and allowed him to give voice to the grief that he had kept to himself for months.

"I'm so sorry, Watson." He whispered as Watson gripped his jacket like a drowning man. "I'm so sorry, old fellow.

John Watson snapped awake on the instant and grief hit him again like a stone dropping into his stomach as his eyes fell on the still form of his wife, white against the covers of the bed, coughing frequently in a manner that was now familiar.

He removed his hand from her golden hair and made himself get shakily to his feet, staggering and clutching the chair beside the bed for support.

How could he have fallen asleep?!

The phantom feeling of a sinewy arm lingered on his shoulders and he looked over the room with a surge of wild hope he knew was absurd.

He was alone. The room was dark and empty and as still as it had been before.

Sherlock Holmes was dead…and soon…

Watson went to the bed again, sinking onto it and taking her cold hand in his.

Soon he would be without her too…

He was entirely alone, and he could feel the terrible black hole growing in his chest to swallow him as he lowered his head and sobbed.

* * *

**Be on the lookout in the next few days for a fic that KCS wrote which addresses this same issue but in much warmer way. **

**And my thanks to her for showing me that its' best to let the characters do their own thing. **


End file.
